We’re 11 months into this pandemic and the pandemic-fatigue is real. We want to check in with you. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Ugh, this is the worst!
Grieving the old ways of life? Me too. And it’s incredible how long we’ve been at this…normal college life is a fuzzy distant memory. And for the freshman out there – you haven’t even had a normal college experience yet! I’m sorry. That stinks.
It’s super normal to feel overwhelmed, stressed, and/or depressed with unstructured days and missed loved ones. Working or schooling from home has made it hard to separate work/school life from personal life.
Losing that freedom of going out and spending time with friends and family has now turned into an ethical dilemma. Should I risk it? I really miss them! What if I get that person sick? But it has been so long! What time are you available to FaceTime/Zoom?
Life has been really hard lately for everyone and it’s time that we talk about it.
One huge impact the pandemic has had is on mental health.
For some, this may have led to emotional eating or even disordered eating. Do you find yourself mindlessly eating throughout the day even when you aren’t really hungry? That’s okay, us too. The food is right there – all the time!
And if you’re hating your body right now, just know you’re not alone. And, this too shall pass.
Let’s be real. This is hard! We wish we had all the answers. While our UCAN health coaches do have some helpful tips to get through these hard times, we also know how to just sit with someone and say – yup – what you’re going through is so super hard and this is terrible.
The most important thing is to stay in tune with your emotions. When you find yourself eating when you aren’t hungry, check in with yourself.
Maybe ask, “What am I feeling right now?” Is it happiness? sadness? boredom? stress? loneliness? or something completely different? Take a moment to do a quick body scan. What are you feeling? What do you need?
Remind yourself that it’s okay to listen to your body and eat whenever you want to. It’s also important to pay attention to those times that you choose to eat even when you aren’t hungry. Take a pause and check in to see if food is the best form of self-care in that moment, or if something else would work better. Sometimes food is really the answer, and that’s ok. Have some! Other times, if we can pinpoint the emotion, such as loneliness, we might find that an activity like talking to a friend works better than food.
Sometimes it’s comforting to just hear this – you are not alone in how you feel. We’re all feeling it. Our health coaches are feeling it too. And it’s nice to know that we don’t have to go through this alone.
If you think it might be helpful, we would love to chat about anything you might be experiencing related to nutrition, physical activity, your body image, sleep or maybe stress.
The pandemic sucks. But we’re here.
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